Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada is asking for help from “retailers, dealers, and collectors of original art” in retrieving pieces stolen from his art collection, especially the Dan DeCarlo cover art for Archie #332, reproduced here (which he is offering to buy back). Some hundreds of pieces of original comic art were stolen and sold by Francesco Bove, a handyman/contractor who had worked for Quesada for over a decade, he wrote. Bove sold 185 pieces at auction, and presumably many more by private sale to comic shops, dealers, and collectors in the New York metropolitan area, Quesada believes.

Quesada described the events leading up to the discovery that Bove had been staying at his house while he was gone and that art had been stolen in a Facebook post that provided a chronology of events that go back to the beginning of 2014.

Among the art stolen were pieces of Quesada’s own art from childhood through adulthood. Quesada described the rest of the collection: “There was an enormous collection of Archie art from various artists like Stan Goldberg, Harry Lucey, Sam Schwartz but the majority of it by Dan DeCarlo. There were also Laugh Comics pages by Bill Woggon, The Adventures Of Pipsqueak by Walt Lardner as well as Pat The Brat and Shrimpy by Joe Harold and a huge assortment of other artists from the 50s and 60s to today.

Quesada asked that anyone that purchased art from Bove, or that knows of the whereabouts of the Archie cover or other art sold by Bove contact Det. Jeffrey McCarrick of the Sparta, New Jersey police department at (973) 726-4072, or the Sparta, New Jersey Police Department or Quesada through their Facebook pages.

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